Fox’s ‘Empire’ Getting Sued By Juvenile Prisoners

With a month to the third season of Empire, two episodes from the last season are the cause of a lawsuit filed over filming at a Chicago juvenile centre.

A couple of the teenage juvenile detention center inmates say their ‘home away from home’ was taken from them when Terrence Howard’s ‘Lucious Lyon’ and Chris Rock’s ‘Frank Gathers’ arrived at the prison to shoot scenes from season two’s premiere episodes.

According to them, the detention center was placed on lock-down for nearly 2 weeks of shooting, with no access to the library, chapel, recreational center and even family visits were interrupted.

“The actions, omissions, and conduct of the Defendants as set forth in this complaint were extreme and outrageous” the suit added. It also notes that while residents were in “psychologically damaging” situations of being kept in their cells or crammed into a dayroom with nothing to do, Empire was filming episodes that would earn it $750,000 per 30 second advertising spot in Episode 1 and $600,000 per 30 second spot in Episode 2.”

As part of the relief, the plaintiffs are seeking for themselves and up to 400 other class members those profits Fox made from the filming of the episodes that took place at the center.

“These actions were rooted in an abuse of power and authority and were undertaken with the intent to cause , or were in reckless disregard of the probability that their conduct would cause severe emotional distress to the children housed at the Juvenile Treatment Detention Center” the 37-page suit read.